Friday, May 22, 2020

First human trial of COVID-19 vaccine finds it is safe and induces rapid immune response

The first COVID-19 vaccine to reach phase 1 clinical trial has been found to be safe, well-tolerated, and able to generate an immune response against SARS-CoV-2 in humans, according to new research published in The Lancet. The open-label trial in 108 healthy adults demonstrates promising results after 28 days—the final results will be evaluated in six months. Further trials are needed to tell whether the immune response it elicits effectively protects against SARS-CoV-2 infection.

"These results represent an important milestone. The trial demonstrates that a single dose of the new adenovirus type 5 vectored COVID-19 (Ad5-nCoV) vaccine produces virus-specific antibodies and T cells in 14 days, making it a potential candidate for further investigation," says Professor Wei Chen from the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology in Beijing, China, who is responsible for the study. "However, these results should be interpreted cautiously. The challenges in the development of a COVD-19 vaccine are unprecedented, and the ability to trigger these immune responses does not necessarily indicate that the vaccine will protect humans from COVID-19. This result shows a promising vision for the development of COVID-19 vaccines, but we are still a long way from this vaccine being available to all."

The creation of an effective vaccine is seen as the long-term solution to controlling the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, there are more than 100 candidate COVID-19 vaccines in development worldwide.

The new Ad5 vectored COVID-19 vaccine evaluated in this trial is the first to be tested in humans. It uses a weakened common cold virus (adenovirus, which infects human cells readily but is incapable of causing disease) to deliver genetic material that codes for the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to the cells. These cells then produce the spike protein, and travel to the lymph nodes where the immune system creates antibodies that will recognize that spike protein and fight off the coronavirus.

The trial assessed the safety and ability to generate an immune response of different dosages of the new Ad5-nCoV vaccine in 108 healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 60 years who did not have SARS-CoV-2 infection. Volunteers were enrolled from one site in Wuhan, China, and assigned to receive either a single intramuscular injection of the new Ad5 vaccine at a low dose (5 × 1010 viral particles/0·5ml, 36 adults), middle dose (1×1011 viral particles/1.0ml, 36 adults), or high dose (1.5 x 1011 viral particles/1.5ml, 36 adults).

The researchers tested the volunteers' blood at regular intervals following vaccination to see whether the vaccine stimulated both arms of the immune system: the body's 'humoral response' (the part of the immune system that produces neutralising antibodies which can fight infection and could offer a level of immunity), and the body's cell-mediated arm (which depends on a group of T cells, rather than antibodies, to fight the virus). The ideal vaccine might generate both antibody and T cell responses to defend against SARS-CoV-2.

The vaccine candidate was well tolerated at all doses with no serious adverse events reported within 28 days of vaccination. Most adverse events were mild or moderate, with 83% (30/36) of those receiving low and middle doses of the vaccine and 75% (27/36) in the high dose group reporting at least one adverse reaction within 7 days of vaccination.

The most common adverse reactions were mild pain at the injection site reported in over half (54%, 58/108) of vaccine recipients, fever (46%, 50/108), fatigue (44%, 47/108), headache (39%, 42/108), and muscle pain (17%, 18/108). One participant given the higher dose vaccine reported severe fever along with severe symptoms of fatigue, shortness of breath, and muscle pain—however these adverse reactions persisted for less than 48 hours.

Within two weeks of vaccination, all dose levels of the vaccine triggered some level of immune response in the form of binding antibodies (that can bind to the coronavirus but do not necessarily attack it—low-dose group 16/36, 44%; medium dose 18/36, 50%; high dose 22/36, 61%), and some participants had detectable neutralising antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 (low-dose group 10/36, 28%; medium dose 11/36, 31%; high dose 15/36, 42%).

After 28 days, most participants had a four-fold increase in binding antibodies (35/36, 97% low-dose group; 34/36 (94%) middle-dose group, and 36/36, 100% in high-dose group), and half (18/36) of participants in the low- and middle-dose groups and three-quarters (27/36) of those in the high-dose group showed neutralising antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.

Importantly, the Ad5-nCoV vaccine also stimulated a rapid T cell response in the majority of volunteers, which was greater in those given the higher and middle doses of vaccine, with levels peaking at 14 days after vaccination (low-dose group (30/36; 83.3%), medium (35/36, 97.2%), and high-dose group (35/36, 97.2%) at 14 days).

Further analyses showed that 28 days after vaccination, the majority of recipients showed either a positive T cell response or had detectable neutralising antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 (low-dose group 28/36, 78%; medium-dose group 33/36, 92%; high-dose group 36/36, 100%).

However, the authors note that both the antibody and T-cell response could be reduced by high pre-existing immunity to adenovirus type 5 (the common cold virus vector/carrier)—in the study, 44%-56% of participants in the trial had high pre-existing immunity to adenovirus type 5, and had a less positive antibody and T-cell response to the vaccine.

"Our study found that pre-existing Ad5 immunity could slow down the rapid immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 and also lower the peaking level of the responses. Moreover, high pre-existing Ad5 immunity may also have a negative impact on the persistence of the vaccine-elicited immune responses," say Professor Feng-Cai Zhu from Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention in China who led the study.

The authors note that the main limitations of the trial are its small sample size, relatively short duration, and lack of randomised control group, which limits the ability to pick up rarer adverse reactions to the vaccine or provide robust evidence for its ability to generate an immune reaction. Further research will be needed before this trial vaccine becomes available to all.

A randomised, double-blinded, placebo-controlled phase 2 trial of the Ad5-nCoV vaccine has been initiated in Wuhan to determine whether the results can be replicated, and if there are any adverse events up to 6 months after vaccination, in 500 healthy adults—250 volunteers given a middle dose, 125 given a low dose, and 125 given a placebo as a control. For the first time, this will include participants over 60 years old, an important target population for the vaccine.Investigational vaccine protects monkeys against COVID-19 pneumonia

More information: Feng-Cai Zhu et al. Safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity of a recombinant adenovirus type-5 vectored COVID-19 vaccine: a dose-escalation, open-label, non-randomised, first-in-human trial. The Lancet. May 22, 2020 DOI: doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31208-3

Journal information: The Lancet

Algal genome provides insights into first land plants

by Krishna Ramanujan, Cornell University

Cornell researchers have sequenced and analyzed the genome of a single-celled alga that belongs to the closest lineage to terrestrial plants and provides many clues to how aquatic plants first colonized land.

The report, "The Penium margaritaceum Genome: Hallmarks of the Origins of Land Plants," was published May 21 in the journal Cell.

Penium margaritaceum belongs to a group of freshwater algae called charophytes, and specifically to a subgroup called the Zygnematophyceae, which had a common ancestor with the first land plants some 600 million years ago. In order to shift from water to land—a transition that still puzzles scientists—plants had to protect themselves from drying out and from ultraviolet (UV) radiation, and they had to develop structures to support themselves without the buoyancy provided by water.

The researchers found footprints of all these adaptations in the Penium genome, providing insight into the mechanisms and genetics that early terrestrial plants required.

"We knew almost nothing about the genomes of the immediate ancestors of land plants," said senior author Jocelyn Rose, professor of plant biology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

"We now have exciting insights into the last common ancestor of algae and land plants," Rose said, "and that allows plant biologists to infer the origins of land plant molecular pathways, developmental systems and biological processes, and to place them in the context of land colonization in ways that have not previously been possible."

Though some algae of the charophyte group are branched and look like early land plants, molecular data reveals that the common ancestor had a simpler filament-like shape.

"We are very interested in why it is that the simple body plan might have been evolutionarily advantageous," Rose said. "Penium lives in the margins of fresh water and land, in habitats that expose it to periods of drying and rehydration and this was likely a key factor."

The Penium genome contains a great deal of repetitive and "junk" (non-coding) DNA, which created challenges for the researchers. They ended up extracting a clean set of DNA from purified nuclei and integrating many kinds of DNA sequencing techniques and assembly programs to cover the entire genome. They also conducted cutting-edge transcriptome (RNA) sequencing to complement the genome sequencing and to understand which genes were turned on and off by different stresses.

"We found out that the genome is huge," said Zhangjun Fei, professor of bioinformatics at Boyce Thompson Institute and an adjunct associate professor in the Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology Section. Fei is a co-leading author of the study and handled the computational and sequencing work.

The genome of this tiny single-celled alga is even larger than the notoriously large maize genome and the human genome.

"One big result is that we found flavonoids, chemicals that can protect from UV light radiation," Fei said.

"Previously it was thought that these compounds only existed in land plants," Rose said. "We detected not only the flavonoids themselves, but also parts of the pathway for their biosynthesis."

The researchers also identified genes involved in regulatory systems and hormone signaling that have previously only been found in land plants, as well as mechanisms that keep plants from drying out, including the production of mucilage.

They also found a large number of genes that contribute to cell wall biosynthesis and reorganization, which are necessary for structural support.

"Again, it's a single cell, but it has enormous families of cell wall modifying proteins," Rose said. "This suggests highly complex control of wall structure, dynamics and biomechanical properties that may be every bit as elaborate as in multicellular lands."

The researchers believe the Penium genome will open up investigations into many areas of plant biology, including possible applications for modern crops. The team plans to investigate the genomes of other species of charophytes.

International collaboration finds land plant genes in ancient aquatic alga

More information: Chen Jiao et al. The Penium margaritaceum Genome: Hallmarks of the Origins of Land Plants, Cell (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.04.019

Journal information: Cell

Insight into mechanism of treatment-resistant gonorrhea sets stage for new antibiotics

A research group at the Medical University of South Carolina examined an antibiotic-resistant strain of Neisseria gonorrhoeae and found a surprisingly new resistance mechanism that inhibits protein dynamics

MEDICAL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA

Due to the spread of antibiotic-resistant strains of Neisseria gonorrhoeae, existing treatments for gonorrhea, the sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium, are no longer effective. In the absence of a vaccine, there is an urgent need to develop novel treatment options.

"It's becoming much more difficult to treat gonorrhea infections as a result of antibiotic resistance," said Christopher Davies, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Medical University of South Carolina. "Antibiotics that used to work against the bug are no longer effective."

Davies and his team report surprising findings about antibiotic resistance in the May 22, 2020 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, showing that mutations in an essential protein responsible for resistance affect the binding of the antibiotic to the microbe. Rather than directly blocking binding of the antibiotic, the mutations prevent movements in the protein that help form the binding site for the antibiotic. The findings could offer a strategy for developing new treatments that overpower antibiotic resistance. Avinash Singh, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the Davies laboratory, is lead author of the article.

N. gonorrhoeae acquires resistance to antibiotics via interactions with so-called commensal species of Neisseria that colonize mucosal surfaces, such as those in the throat and genital tract, but do not cause disease. These species develop resistance following exposure to antibiotics that someone has taken for an infection. The commensal bacteria then transfer sections of genes responsible for antibiotic resistance not only among themselves, but also to disease-causing N. gonorrhoeae during gonorrhea infections. Once N. gonorrhoeae have incorporated these genes, they develop resistance and are no longer treatable with current antibiotics.

Overpowering that resistance will require more than a genetic understanding of how resistance arises.

"We need to understand what that resistance means at the molecular level," said Davies. "Only then can we address antimicrobial resistance by designing new antimicrobials to replace those that are no longer effective."

In recent years, cephalosporins have been the main drugs used to treat gonorrhea. Like penicillin, they target essential bacterial proteins, called penicillin-binding proteins (PBPs), that are responsible for the construction of cell walls. Bacteria need their cell walls to maintain cell shape and integrity. When a PBP is inhibited by a cephalosporin, the bacterial wall develops holes, resulting in the death of the microbe.

Gonorrhea can become resistant to cephalosporins when the PBP drug target mutates. Davies' group looked at the effect of those mutations on the structure of a PBP called PBP2 from a cephalosporin-resistant strain of gonorrhea.

The researchers compared the molecular structure of PBP2 in the antibiotic-resistant strain to that of an antibiotic-susceptible strain.

To their surprise, they found that the mutations prevented changes in the shape of PBP2 that are necessary for the antibiotic to bind to the protein.

Typically, mutations that confer antibiotic resistance occur in the so-called active site of proteins and block binding. But in PBP2, several of the mutations are quite a distance away. These distant mutations seem to be restricting shape changes in PBP2 that normally allow the antibiotic to interact with the protein and kill the microbe.

Once scientists understand the molecular mechanisms behind antibiotic resistance, they will be able to create new generations of antibiotics designed to avoid or overpower these mechanisms.

Knowing the important mutations that cause resistance will also allow treatments to be tailored for specific strains of N. gonorrhoeae. Patterns of resistance mutations could then be used to develop diagnostic kits to identify the strain with which a patient is infected, enabling doctors to prescribe the most appropriate antibiotics.

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About the Medical University of South Carolina

Founded in 1824 in Charleston, MUSC is the oldest medical school in the South as well as the state's only integrated academic health sciences center with a unique charge to serve the state through education, research and patient care. Each year, MUSC educates and trains more than 3,000 students and 800 residents in six colleges: Dental Medicine, Graduate Studies, Health Professions, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy. The state's leader in obtaining biomedical research funds, in fiscal year 2019, MUSC set a new high, bringing in more than $284 million. For information on academic programs, visit http://musc.edu.

As the clinical health system of the Medical University of South Carolina, MUSC Health is dedicated to delivering the highest quality patient care available while training generations of competent, compassionate health care providers to serve the people of South Carolina and beyond. Comprising some 1,600 beds, more than 100 outreach sites, the MUSC College of Medicine, the physicians' practice plan and nearly 275 telehealth locations, MUSC Health owns and operates eight hospitals situated in Charleston, Chester, Florence, Lancaster and Marion counties. In 2019, for the fifth consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report named MUSC Health the No. 1 hospital in South Carolina. To learn more about clinical patient services, visit http://muschealth.org.

MUSC and its affiliates have collective annual budgets of $3.2 billion. The more than 17,000 MUSC team members include world-class faculty, physicians, specialty providers and scientists who deliver groundbreaking education, research, technology and patient care.

Past is prologue: Genetic 'memory' of ancestral environments helps organisms readapt

by Jim Erickson, University of Michigan

Organisms carry long-term "memories" of their ancestral homelands that help them adapt to environmental change, according to a new study that involved raising chickens on the Tibetan Plateau and an adjacent lowland site.

The study provides new insights into how creatures adapt to changing environments, a topic that's especially relevant today in the context of rapid climate change, which is creating challenges for plants and animals worldwide.

The chicken was domesticated from the red jungle fowl in South Asia and Southeast Asia at least 4,000 to 4,500 years ago. It was brought to the Tibetan Plateau by about 1,200 years ago, where it acquired high-altitude adaptations such as an increase in oxygen-carrying red blood cells.

In a set of experiments by University of Michigan biologists and their Chinese colleagues, researchers hatched and reared hundreds of chickens on the Tibetan Plateau, at an elevation of nearly 11,000 feet, and at an adjacent lowland site in China's Sichuan Province. Some of the eggs from lowland chickens were hatched on the plateau, and some high-altitude eggs were hatched at a site 2,200 feet above sea level.

The goal was to assess the relative contributions of two types of phenotypic change—meaning changes to an organism's observable physical characteristics or traits—to the process of environmental adaptation. "Plastic" phenotypic changes involve altered gene activity but no rewriting of the genetic code in DNA molecules, while mutations cause altered gene activity by modifying the sequence of letters in the code itself.

Evolutionary biologists have debated the relative roles of plastic and mutation-induced changes in adaptation, and whether the former serve as stepping stones to the latter.

In the chicken study, researchers were specifically interested in how organisms readapt when reintroduced to ancestral environments. They found that plastic changes play a more prominent role when organisms return to an ancestral home than when they adapt to new environments.

"These findings reveal a mechanism by which past experience affects future evolution," said Jianzhi Zhang, the study's senior author and a professor in the U-M Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

"Our findings contribute to the recent debate on the relative roles of plastic and genetic changes in adaptation and reveal the importance of considering whether the environment is changing to a novel or ancestral one."

The findings are scheduled for publication May 22 in the journal Science Advances.

To study the relative roles of plastic and DNA-sequence changes, the researchers looked at gene-expression differences between lowland and Tibetan chickens in five tissue types: brain, liver, lung, heart and muscle. To do that, they analyzed RNA transcriptomes from cells in those tissues.

The genome is made of DNA that contains the instructions needed to build an organism. For those instructions to be carried out, DNA must be read and transcribed into messenger RNA molecules.

By analyzing the entire collection of RNA sequences in a cell, known as the transcriptome, researchers can determine when and where genes are turned on and off. Gene-expression studies provide snapshots of actively expressed genes under various conditions.

Changes in gene activity alter an organism's phenotype, which includes its morphology, behavior and physiology. The term phenotypic plasticity refers to environmentally induced phenotypic changes that do not involve genetic mutations.

In the chicken study, the researchers found that while many mutation-induced phenotypic changes were necessary when the animals first adapted to the Tibetan Plateau, plastic changes largely transformed the transcriptomes to the preferred state when Tibetan chickens were brought back to the lowland.

A similar result was seen with egg "hatchability," the fraction of fertilized chicken eggs that hatched in the study.

When lowland eggs were incubated on the unfamiliar Tibetan Plateau, hatchability was significantly lower than that of Tibetan chicken eggs. But when Tibetan eggs were incubated in the lowland—an environment familiar from the distant past—there was no significant difference in hatchability between the two groups.

The egg result suggests that adaptive mutational changes are needed when an organism is brought to an unfamiliar environment for the first time, while plastic changes will do the trick when those same creatures return to an ancestral home.

Zhang's team also analyzed transcriptomes from previous studies of guppies and E. coli bacteria and found comparable results—regardless of whether the new environment was more stressful or less stressful than the ancestral environment.

"In summary, our work uncovers a phenomenon conserved from bacteria to vertebrates that organisms remember their ancestral environments in the form of phenotypic plasticity," the authors wrote.Comprehensive picture of vegetation and climate on Tibetan Plateau during Quaternary ice ages

More information: W.-C. Ho el al., "Phenotypic plasticity as a long-term memory easing readaptations to ancestral environments," Science Advances (2020). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aba3388 , advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/21/eaba3388

Journal information: Science Advances

Provided by University of Michigan

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First fossil nursery of the great white shark discovered

Paleo-kindergarten ensured evolutionary success millions of years ago

UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA

IMAGE: SET OF TEETH OF TODAY'S WHITE SHARK AND A RECONSTRUCTED SET OF TEETH OF A FOSSIL GREAT WHITE SHARK. view more

CREDIT: ©JAIME VILLAFAÑA/JUERGEN KRIWET

The great white shark is one of the most charismatic, but also one of the most infamous sharks. Despite its importance as top predator in marine ecosystems, it is considered threatened with extinction; its very slow growth and late reproduction with only few offspring are - in addition to anthropogenic reasons - responsible for this.

Young white sharks are born in designated breeding areas, where they are protected from other predators until they are large enough not to fear competitors any more. Such nurseries are essential for maintaining stable and sustainable breeding population sizes, have a direct influence on the spatial distribution of populations and ensure the survival and evolutionary success of species. Researchers* have therefore intensified the search for such nurseries in recent years in order to mitigate current population declines of sharks by suitable protection measures. "Our knowledge about current breeding grounds of the great white shark is still very limited, however, and palaeo-nurseries are completely unknown", explains Jaime Villafaña from the University of Vienna.

He and his colleagues analysed statistically 5 to 2 million year old fossil teeth of this fascinating shark, which were found at several sites along the Pacific coast of Chile and Peru, to reconstruct body size distribution patterns of great white shark in the past. The results show that body sizes varied considerably along the South American paleo-Pacific coast. One of these localities in northern Chile, Coquimbo, revealed the highest percentage of young sharks, the lowest percentage of "teenagers". Sexually mature animals were completely absent.

This first undoubted paleo-nursery of the Great White Shark is of enormous importance. It comes from a time when the climate was much warmer than today, so that this time can be considered analogous to the expected global warming trends in the future. "If we understand the past, it will enable us to take appropriate protective measures today to ensure the survival of this top predator, which is of utmost importance for ecosystems," explains palaeobiologist Jürgen Kriwet: "Our results indicate that rising sea surface temperatures will change the distribution of fish in temperate zones and shift these important breeding grounds in the future".

This would have a direct impact on population dynamics of the great white shark and would also affect its evolutionary success in the future. "Studies of past and present nursery grounds and their response to temperature and paleo-oceanographic changes are essential to protect such ecological key species," concluded Jürgen Kriwet.

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Publication in Scientific Reports:

First evidence of a palaeo-nursery area of the great white shark.
Villafaña, J.A., Hernandez, S., Alvarado, A., Shimada, K., Pimiento, C., Rivadeneira, M.M. & Kriwet, J., in: Scientific Reports,
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-65101-1

YOUR HOST IN THE JAWS OF A MEGADON DRUMHELLER AB 2019

Indigenous collaboration and leadership key to managing sea otter population recovery

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

IMAGE: A GROUP PHOTO FROM THE 2014 COASTAL VOICES WORKSHOP. view more

CREDIT: ILJA HERB

A new study highlights the need to engage Indigenous communities in managing sea otter population recovery to improve coexistence between humans and this challenging predator.

The sea otters' recovery along the northwest coast of North America presents a challenge for coastal communities because both otters and humans like to eat shellfish, such as sea urchins, crabs, clams and abalone. Expanding populations of sea otters and their arrival in new areas are heavily impacting First Nations and Tribes that rely on harvesting shellfish.

SFU lead author Jenn Burt says the study focused beyond the challenges to seek solutions going forward. "We documented Indigenous peoples' perspectives which illuminated key strategies to help improve sea otter management and overall coexistence with sea otters."

Most research focuses on how sea otter recovery greatly reduces shellfish abundance or expands kelp forests, rather than on how Indigenous communities are impacted, or how they are adapting to the returning sea otters' threat to their food security, cultural traditions, and livelihoods.

Recognizing that Indigenous perspectives were largely absent from dialogues about sea otter recovery and management, SFU researchers reached out to initiate the Coastal Voices collaboration.

Coastal Voices is a partnership with Indigenous leaders and knowledge holders representing 19 First Nations and Tribes from Alaska to British Columbia.

Based on information revealed in workshops, interviews, and multiple community surveys, SFU researchers and collaborating Indigenous leaders found that human-otter coexistence can be enabled by strengthening Indigenous governance authority and establishing locally designed, adaptive co-management plans for sea otters.

The study, published this week in People and Nature also suggests that navigating sea otter recovery can be improved by incorporating Indigenous knowledge into sea otter management plans, and building networks and forums for community discussions about sea otter and marine resource management.

"Our people actively managed a balanced relationship with sea otters for millennia," says co-author and Haida matriarch Kii'iljuus (Barbara Wilson), a recent SFU alumnus.

"Our work with Coastal Voices and this study helps show how those rights and knowledge need to be recognized and be part of contemporary sea otter management."

Anne Salomon, a professor in SFU's School of Resource and Environmental Management, co-authored the study and co-led the Coastal Voices research partnership.

"This research reveals that enhancing Indigenous people's ability to coexist with sea otters will require a transformation in the current governance of fisheries and marine spaces in Canada, if we are to navigate towards a system that is more ecologically sustainable and socially just," says Salomon.

Despite challenges, the authors say transformation is possible. They found that adaptive governance and Indigenous co-management of marine mammals exist in other coastal regions in northern Canada and the U.S. They suggest that increasing Indigenous leadership and Canadian government commitments to Reconciliation may provide opportunities for new approaches and more collaborative marine resource management.

A group photo of the Coastal Voices team in Alaska. CREDIT Tim Malchoff

Aboriginal rock art, frontier conflict and a swastika

Murray River rockshelter reveals region's history
NEWS RELEASE 18-MAY-2020

FLINDERS UNIVERSITY

IMAGE: WESTERN CAVITY ADJACENT TO PUDJINUK ROCKSHELTER NO. 1 FACING WEST (NOTE THAT THE ENTRANCE TO THE ROCKSHELTER IS PARTIALLY CONCEALED FROM THIS VANTAGE POINT). PHOTO BY AMY ROBERTS, 13 SEPTEMBER... view more

CREDIT: AMY ROBERTS, FLINDERS UNIVERSITY

A hidden Murray River rockshelter speaks volumes about local Aboriginal and European settlement in the Riverland, with symbols of conflict - including a swastika symbol - discovered in Aboriginal rock art.

The engravings studied in 188 engravings in a remote South Australian rockshelter are a stark reminder of colonial invasion and the strife brewing in Europe ahead of World War Two, Flinders University archaeologists have revealed.

The 'graffiti' has been etched over or adjacent to Aboriginal rock art at a culturally significant rockshelter in limestone cliffs of the Murray River near Waikerie in South Australia.

The engravings reveal the deep Aboriginal significance of the rockshelter, the traumatic period of European invasion, and the frontier conflict and ongoing impacts of colonial settlement, says lead author Flinders Associate Professor Amy Roberts, who works with members of the local Aboriginal community.

The archaeologists from Flinders University, in partnership with the River Murray and Mallee Aboriginal Corporation, have published their observations in a new article in Australian Archaeology.

"Of the 188 motifs identified, only one engraving remained that could be positively identified as a pre-European Aboriginal design - a 'treelike' motif," Associate Professor Roberts says.

"The rest of the identifiable historical inscriptions were the work of members of frontier conflict/punitive expeditions, local European settlers and a non-local Aboriginal man. Of the motifs that can be confidently identified one incorporates a swastika, engraved in 1932."

The first European historical inscriptions were engraved by members of volunteer police parties on punitive expeditions, and were part of a historical trajectory that later culminated in the Rufus River Massacre.

"It is unlikely that police party members were unaware of this deliberate desecration when they added their names to the front of the shelter," says co-author Flinders University Professor Heather Burke.

The authors argue that these historical engravings breach the Aboriginal cultural space and represent the first acts of trespass and desecration.

Fiona Giles, co-chair of the River Murray and Mallee Aboriginal Corporation, says: "We need to tell these stories to protect our history and heritage so that our culture is respected and not lost.

"For us, as traditional owners, this rockshelter is a highly significant and special place. It tells the stories of our ancestors and shows our deep connection to the river and reminds us of how our people lived before Europeans invaded our world," she says.

Example of panel of significant surface preparation for inscriptions. Photo Ellen Tiley 2016

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The paper, 'Connection, trespass, identity and a swastika: mark-making and entanglements at Pudjinuk Rockshelter No. 1, South Australia'(April 2020) by Amy Roberts, Heather Burke, Catherine Morton and the River Murray and Mallee Aboriginal Corporation has been published in Australian Archaeology DOI:10.1080/03122417.2019.1738666

Research at the Pudjinuk rockshelters is being funded by the Australian Research Council [LP170100479].

"Saving the Planet" Requires the Destruction of the Capitalist State and the Exercise of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat!

The International Group of the Communist Left (www.igcl.org), Septembre 20th 2019.

No one doubts today, especially in the face of global warming, that capitalism is ’destroying the planet’ and threatening the very survival of the human species. Even the most fervent followers, ideologues and propagandists of ’capitalism economic liberalism’, such as the Financial Times and The Economist, which in recent days have declared that it was "time to a reset" for capitalism, that "business must make a profit but should serve a purpose too" and ’profoundly chang[e] the economy’ [1]. Up to the point of launching a global media and political campaign encouraging and promoting more than 5000 demonstrations against global warming throughout the world. The reality of the opposition between capitalism and nature is obvious to all - except for some Trump and Bolsonaro who can thus serve as useful idiots, as stooges, to give more credit to the current ecological mobilization. All ideological bourgeois currents, from economic liberals, Keynesians, left-wing anti-liberals, to the most radical anti-capitalists - ex-Stalinists, Trotskyists and leftists - are calling for a general mobilization. Some capitalist companies even invite their employees to ’strike’ so that they can go on demonstration!

That capitalism "estrang[es] from man nature and himself" [2] was already established, noted, explained, criticized and denounced from the very first theoretical and programmatic steps of the revolutionary workers movement, through its theory, Marxism. Nothing new in itself, therefore, for the conscious proletarians and communists. But according to the capitalist media and most state apparatus, there is an absolute urgency since tomorrow it will be too late because of irreversible consequences. According to the latest IPCC report [3], "at the current rate of emissions, global warming will reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052. Without increasing the ambition of the signatory countries of the Paris Agreement and without immediate implementation of the necessary measures, global warming is expected to reach 3°C by 2100" [4].

Sustainable Development and Degrowth ?

To answer this, there would essentially be two options: sustainable development or, for the most radical, degrowth. The opposition between the two is only apparent because they remain on the same ground. Both delimit the scope of political action to the capitalist ideological, political and state framework. Even the most radical limit the struggle within the framework of capitalism, the people and citizens ignoring any contradiction and class division within them, bourgeois democracy and its state when they demand that "Government (...) tell the truth (sic!) by declaring a climate and ecological emergency ; [that they] act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025; [and] create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens’ Assembly on climate and ecological justice" (https://rebellion.earth/the-truth/demands/).

Sustainable development or degrowth - in whatever form and degree - does not call into question the factor of global warming: capitalism; that is, the ever-renewed and expanded accumulation of capital, the ever-increasing pursuit of profit, and widespread commodification. And the political solutions that accompany both are inevitably false solutions from the point of view of preserving the planet; and real impasses and ideological and political traps from the point of view of the revolutionary class, the proletariat. It goes the same for ecological ideology as well as pacifist. Capitalism is war - another classic thesis of Marxism - and pacifism, whatever the conscience and sincerity of each pacifist, is only a means and a moment of preparation for imperialist war. Capitalism is also the inevitable destruction of the environment and ecologism, whatever the conscience and sincerity of each ecologist (often also pacifist by the way), is only a means and a moment of the recruitment behind and in defence of the democratic state in view of the generalized imperialist war.

Why and How Communism is the Only ’Solution’?

Only Communism can put an end to wars and production that devastate the planet. Of course, we are not talking about so-called communism, in fact a particular form of state capitalism due to historical conditions that were also particular, of the former USSR or Stalinist China, which made the growth of industrial production the criterion of the superiority of their so-called socialism over capitalism. And whose object was ultimately only aimed at war.... Nationalization and state control have never been socialist or communist measures like Marx and Engels already in their time [5] have never ceased to warn.

"If, in socialism, there is accumulation, it will be presented as an accumulation of material objects useful to human needs and these will not need to appear alternately as currency, nor will they need to undergo the application of a ’monetometer’ to measure and compare them according to a ’general equivalent’. Therefore, these objects will no longer be commodities and will only be defined by their physical and qualitative quantitative nature, which is expressed by economists, and also by Marx, for the purpose of exposure, by use-value.

It can be established that the rates of accumulation in socialism, measured in material quantities such as tons of steel or kilowatts of energy, will be slow and slightly higher than the rate of population growth. With regard to mature capitalist societies, rational planning of consumption in quantity and quality and the abolition of the huge mass of anti-social consumption (from cigarettes to aircraft carriers) will probably determine a long period of declining production indices and therefore, if we use old terms, disinvestment and disaccumulation" [6] (A. Bordiga).

Saving the planet can only be achieved if we produce for human needs and not for profit. But also, and much more immediately, by removing the threat of generalized imperialist war to which capitalist crisis inevitably leads. That is why the fight against the capitalist state and its destruction is the real urgency for the salvation of the planet. However, this fight can only be fought by the social class that is "s[unk] to the level of (...) the most wretched of commodities" [7], the labour force commodity, that is the proletariat. Because it alone "is a really revolutionary class [and can sweep] away by force the old conditions of production [and] the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class" (Manifesto of the Communist Party). And thus can restore human being’s unity with nature, "his body, with which he must remain in continuous interchange if he is not to die" [8].

The present campaign against global warming - however real and dangerous it may be - aims instead to drag the populations, especially the younger generation, behind capitalist states and democratic ideology in the name of the people. And to divert their attention from the class struggle and the international proletariat. At a time when the capitalist class is redoubling its attacks against the proletarians everywhere because of the economic impasse and the growing imperialist tensions and wars. At a time when a massive confrontation between the classes is becoming the central issue because the fate of humanity will depend on its outcome: towards a society without exploitation, no class, no misery, no war, or towards a generalized imperialist war.

To those who really want to fight capitalism and its dramatic consequences of all kinds: it is not in demonstrations encouraged, promoted and even organised by States that they will be able to advance ’the cause of saving the planet’. It is by joining proletarian struggles, workers’ struggles, strikes, demonstrations, etc. and by getting closer to proletarian and revolutionary minorities, especially those of the Communist Left. Because so, and only so, will they be able to find a militant commitment and a theoretical and political coherence that will allow them to integrate and actively participate in the struggle for the true safeguarding of the planet and humanity: the historical struggle of the international revolutionary proletariat for Communism.

The International Group of the Communist Left (www.igcl.org), Septembre 20th 2019.

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Notes:

[1] . Quoted by the French radio France Inter: https://www.franceinter.fr/emissions/l-edito-eco/l-edito-eco-20-septembre-2019. The second is translated by us.

[2] . Because wage labour which "tear[s] away from man the object of his production" and ’takes nature from him’, Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, K. Marx.

[3] . Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

[4] . https://www.ecologique-solidaire.gouv.fr/quil-faut-retenir-du-rapport-du-giec-sur-rechauffement-climatique (translated by us).

[5] . Not even Lenin by the way - and contrary to what Stalinism, and also partly Trostky himself, claimed - despite the particularly dramatic conditions in Russia after October 1917 and the emergency state capitalist measures that had to be taken in the face of the destruction of the war, international isolation, the paralysis of the productive apparatus and the famine and misery that resulted from it... But that is another question.

[6] . A. Bordiga, Structure économique et sociale de la Russie d’aujourd’hui, Éditions de l’oubli, collection of article and texts written in the 1950, translated by us from French).

[7] . Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, K. Marx.

[8] . (idem)

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